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NOVA: Australia's First Four Billion Years | Devonian Fish Fossils

Learn about fish fossils that provide clues to the origins of reproduction methods using internal fertilization and live birth in this video excerpt from NOVA. The Gogo Formation in Australia contains exceptionally well-preserved fossils from the Devonian period. The fossils display many features of prehistoric fish, including jaws, teeth, fins, bony head plates, scales, and other soft body parts. Host and scientist Richard Smith learns about the oldest confirmed male appendage (a clasper of a placoderm, used to impregnate females) and the earliest evidence of live birth in a vertebrate (a mother placoderm with her unborn embryo).